Star-Ledger file photoMaybe it didn't have the cachet of old Yankee Stadium, but Giants Stadium was a perfect place to watch a football game.

It was a source of constant wonder during my childhood, like an alien spaceship parked at the edge of Route 3.

I remember watching the 1986 NFC Championship Game from the very last row, wondering if those were really football players on the field so far below, or if they were tiny robots in shoulder pads. How could one building be so impossibly big?

Now, just as impossible to my adult eyes, Giants Stadium looks like a miniaturized version of itself standing in the shadow of the monstrosity that will soon open next door. Like most old-timers, the 33-year-old landmark in the swamp is shrinking with age.

We have grown accustomed to closing sporting venues around here, and a football stadium built in the '70s won't get the same gushy poetry as a baseball cathedral opened in the '20s. But for fans who spent their autumn weekends here for decades, you can bet the long goodbye that begins Sunday afternoon with the Giants-Redskins game will be a sad one.

This is what I heard most when the new stadium started going up and the bills for those PSLs started going out: "We never asked for this." The teams may have needed it for the revenue from those luxury suites and sky boxes to keep pace with the (Jerry) Joneses.

But to the paying customers, the old building may have been free of the flat screen TVs and carving stations that have somehow become part of our sporting experience, but it was a perfectly fine place to watch a football game. One of the best ever, in fact.

"I understand the financial aspects of it, I guess," said one of the mourners, a 62-year-old fan named David Kiely. "But as far as fans are concerned? There is nothing wrong with Giants Stadium."

The Point Pleasant resident, like so many Giants fans, has had season tickets predating the stadium's opening. He is relocating to the upper deck because he can't afford the PSLs from his old seats in Section 121.

But Kiely is one of the lucky ones, because the stadium is not the only thing disappearing. So is much of the old-guard fan base, unable or unwilling to pay the prices for their seats.

People have sat in the same seats for so long, they're not only losing their view, but their neighbors. Friendships were born in those red-plastic seats. Fans grew old together, put their kids through college together, and when attending every game became difficult, those kids took over the seats.

Generations of people have identified themselves not only by the team they loved, but where they parked. People might not know Jerry Foley by name, but they knew he was the guy with the bullhorn in lot 13-A. That was part of the experience.

"All I need is a slab of concrete and a place to watch the game," said Foley, a Robbinsville resident. He worries about how the dynamic in the new place may change. "You're going to suffer with the home-field advantage because the average fan can't afford the lower-level. It's depressing."

I put my name on the fabled waiting list five years ago on a lark, back when it topped 50,000. The list, in its heyday, was like Alcatraz -- nobody made it off. Then, just two weeks ago, the Giants sent me an e-mail practically begging me to buy season tickets.

The seats were available in the Coaches Club, and including the "rich interiors" and "spectacular furniture," the team website promised that fans "no longer will have to worry about finding a great restaurant before or after the game."

A great restaurant? There are roughly 20,000 chefs on the average game day, their kitchens the five square feet between their trunks and the traffic. Nobody who ever walked into that stadium needed anything but a seat, a beer and a bathroom to enjoy the experience.

Progress, they say. Things change. I played along, clicked on the PSL calculator, plugged in two tickets. The cost was broken down into four payments to lessen the blow, but the grand total: $54,000.

The team has yet to sell about 3,000 club seats, and a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal on Friday announced that sales are open to the general public. The Giants have one of the most loyal fan bases, but they are finding, just as the Jets are, that there is a limit to the number of millionaire football fans out there.

Fifty-four grand not only buys a high-definition TV for the living room. It buys the living room.

"People don't want all that extra stuff," Kiely said. "I suppose the people with a ton of money look for those amenities, but we always just hang out in the parking lot, go in and have fun, and go home."

No one denies that the new place is going to be spectacular -- for $1.6 billion, it better be. In time, fans will come up with new routines and make friends with their new neighbors, and not having to huddle in the bathroom when the temperatures drop below freezing figures to be a bonus.

Starting Sunday, there are just 16 NFL games left at the stadium, maybe a couple more in the playoffs if we're lucky. Nobody will eulogize the place as the most comfortable or with the most tradition.

But around here, nobody will come up with a better place to watch a football game, either.